Winter 57 in Mostaganem and Paris
Odile, born on 9 January 57 and died on 9 March 5722
...Claude suffers a little today and I hope the baby will arrive without too much worry. Tomorrow I will be 2 weeks away from Versailles and I look forward to this deliverance in order to make myself useful in due course.
Yves is here today all day at his office, but tomorrow he goes on tour in Aflou with the chief engineer. And the 15-year-old maid hurt her foot and sent us her sister 13 years old who is also helpful for her age.
The time is always bright, we went to the beach several times. Claude drives this huge car (we had bought a 403 to replace the 4CV Renault), and Frédéric is adorable. He speaks a charabia that looks like Arabic, looks like making sentences and answers. He plays only a part of the day in his room with his toys and we hear him talking and laughing.
... yesterday Yves led us to lunch the town planning director for the department of Oran. It is well... Wanting to say something sweet he admired "the beautiful still life" (an oil of Fanny, with apples), which he found very well composed...
Odile, 11 January 57
Odile was a very quiet baby, because with his illness he didn't have the strength to scream. When he was stressed, he had slightly blue skin, hence the name "blue disease"
Claude and Frédéric, at the Mullers
Mrs Pen and her last
Mosta on 9-1-57 (at the end of the day)
Odile's birth was particularly easy, I was writing to you this morning that Claude felt a few small pinches, she arrived at the clinic at 4:00 am, at 5:00 pm she thought it was that, 1/2 hours of pain from 6:1/2 to 7 am and the girl really came very easily, I find that it is still a Cordelle, I thought I saw Mrs. Chedal, dark brown, 2k990. Tomorrow after noon we will introduce the brother to the sister!
Claude was in good shape, she didn't have time to die. At 7:1/2 a.m. she was offered dinner, she asked for time to blow for 1⁄2 an hour. As for her poor doctor, he had a terrible mine with nephretic colics.
...we hit a Prefect(The 1ir Prefect of Mostaganem)But these are not easy posts.
I think Mrs Cordelle was able to call you at 8:00 tonight. Everything goes fast in these modern times and we call with waves I don't know how by Corsica and Bône, in 10 minutes....
Letter from Claude to his father and Fanny
Mostaganem on 12 (January 57)...I write to you from the clinic where, of course, we lead the life of a castle. Nothing to do if it is to breastfeed his abortion, enjoy with the voluminous mail that we receive, and receive visits of circumstances, and gifts of circumstance, which is not unpleasant!
(on 17 January)I came home from the clinic on Thursday a little bored with 39° and a beginning of breast loss. But the fashionable drugs have me cured, only I find them tiring to bear, and I don't look good. To return to Odile, I find it rather prettier than Frédéric, but she has quite a velour of a caterpillar with her tongue, her two front legs in the air. She is very sleepy and to drink it a bit a story, because as of course she doesn't like the maternal breast that is very uncomfortable and the breast is strangled.era She became a violet when she was changed and I was very worried... but now she has about her infirmity.
Letter from Grannie to Grand Father, from Mostaganem, about January 19
...the little Odile is not voracious like her brother....we think of baptizing her Friday, with the Mullers, the Pens and the Géli. The weather is beautiful and cool. Frédéric is hard and easy, but still turbulent.
This time we're promised a strike for next week, and I made some supplies this morning...
...I just got to roast in the sun with Frédéric, and he's playing on the carpet to put on his pearls, his mommy has found a good appetite and she's walking around her apartment. Everything seems to be fine. Yves sorts his photos and you'll soon see our "carter", that's how he called his mom!...
Letter from Claude to his parents, about 24 January 57, from Mostaganem
...it's already 3 days since Mom left and the good weather of the family reunion is over. We had a little cockroach after France, after Mom left. It's true that since Monday people are not badly excited with a general Arab strike. Dockers have been replaced on the port by the army, high school students from 1eraMuslims gathered in the big street, palabrating to do nothing as usual. At the Mullers, the agricultural workers did not come, but it seems that this strike remains localized in our area and elsewhere it did not take. Here it is thought that it will not last.The little cocotte is opening its eyes more and more. I don't think it is getting bigger (his heart disease prevented him from developing normally), but she looks good what is essential. I think I have the result of my milk analysis today and we will see what needs to be done. I am starting to know how to change it at all times and I am making efforts to change it every time.
As for me poor before yesterday I was taken back from a beginning of breast abscess and I was completely flat; in the morning I called this brave Deloupy (the homeopathic doctor) who hastened to tell me of the evil of Lamur and all these medicines pass everywhere that apparently heal the evil and bring it out in another form or 15 days after. And after warm water compresses and homeopathic pills administered all day, the next day, that is to say today, I was without fever and almost cured.
The Tuttoune will pierce a tooth, it coughs but always distributes its "ogaed" so I don't bile.
I'm fighting my maternal instincts that will make me cover it like an onion at night on this occasion.
Everything goes well in the house, Josiane makes an effort to laugh firm; she arrives a little before 8am and gives Frédéric lunch....
In March 1957, in the face of the worsening state of Odile, we went to Paris to meet specialists.
Odile's heart disease is described in
Note by Dr. Lamur The first of these was the report by the expert from Paris, Dr. Finas who saw her in Oran. Also attached is the order of the hospital Sick children in Paris.
Odile died of a respiratory attack.
In Versailles, Yves and Frédéric
The Maillet family: from g to d:Yvon?, Marguerite, Etienne, Tandree, Annie, Claire
In Versailles, from g to d: Grannie, Bonne-Maman de Sceaux, Fanny, Claude, Grand-Père, Yves, Frédéric
In Versailles (' Ecole d'Horticulture?)
Michel Maillet and his young wife
In Versailles (gardens of the School of Horticulture?)
.....We found the house well; only Odile was more, but it is quite soothing to know it now with God, and what a lesson of humility to say that this little girl now knows the real life, and a life we can't imagine, but we are sure she is in joy. So it's not sad at all for parents to know that their child has such a perfect destiny and that she watches over all.
The big Touteon doesn't want to stay alone in his room, but through the open door between his room and ours, he agrees to go play at home and not carry all his stuff around the house. I find that he has made a lot of progress in 15 days and I thank you for making me so beautiful a boy? I hope Mom will rest well. I am bored to know her tired and during sleepless time. She should not worry about us; everything is fine now. Nor should she worry about apartment matters. (The next Grand Father's retreat will force the Rugier to leave the office apartment on 6 Hardy Street, at the horticulture school). She will surely find a very good one with large rooms, sunny and quiet: you have one year left and in 1 year there is time to see many things; and you must not be discouraged from having missed the dernier....
